The present disclosure relates to aqueous dye based ink jet inks. The present disclosure further relates to aqueous dye based ink jet inks for use with specialty papers such as photo glossy papers.
Ink jet printing is a non-impact printing process in which droplets of ink are deposited on a substrate, such as paper, to form the desired image. The droplets are ejected from a print head in response to electrical signals generated by a microprocessor. Ink jet printers offer low cost, high quality printing and have become a popular alternative to other types of printers.
An ink jet ink set for color printing will generally comprise cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY) inks, which are referred to as the primary colors. An ink set will also commonly comprise a black ink (CMYK).
A suitable ink should generally exhibit good crusting resistance, good stability, proper viscosity, proper surface tension, good color-to-color bleed alleviation, rapid dry time, consumer-safety and low strike-through.
In addition, the ink set should provide printed images having good color characteristics, such as correct hue and high chroma. Preferably, the ink set will achieve these favorable characteristics on a range of media including plain paper as well as specialty media such as transparency film and coated paper. Also, preferably, the hard copy output is reasonably lightfast.
While some of these conditions may be met by ink vehicle design, other conditions must be met by the proper selection and combination of the colorants.
When inks are to be used with photo glossy papers, it is preferred that the ink set typically not comprise a black pigmented ink because the black pigmented inks have a tendency to sit on the surface of the photo glossy paper and this is disadvantageous because the gloss may be reduced and the pigment black may easily rub off the media.
A black image is typically generated using a dye-based cyan, magenta, yellow containing ink set and mixing the three colors together (also known as a CMY composite black). Because of variable dye migration into the media, the color balance between the cyan, magenta, yellow inks to give a black image is lost, and, oftentimes, a bluish image or so-called blue haze (typically resulting from loss of yellow color) is formed instead of a black image.
The ink jet cartridges also have a useful life after the ink is consumed. It is desirable to be able to refill the cartridges multiple times to make best use of the resources. However, once ink has been introduced into a foam filled cartridge, it has been difficult to refill the cartridge with ink a second time. This may be caused by air trapped in the foam that the second charge of ink cannot displace. One option is to disassemble the cartridge and replace the used foam with new, dry foam. However, this requires special equipment to correctly compress the new foam and position it in the cartridge.
A need still exists for improved inks and ink sets that provide appropriate color, light fastness and bleed control, particularly on plain paper and specialty papers such as photo glossy paper. There also exists a need for inks that will fill a previously wetted foam pen multiple times.